Pirate ships should never hit 3-4k health, no matter how long I play the game. They are damn pirates. If I spent tons of money to build fully upgraded starbase + tons defenses in selected system, this sytem  is supossed to be safe from pirate attack. Forcing me to send my entire fleet to save this system, and letting me loose half of this armada + SB + amost all defenses during pirate "raid" is not funny. I want to be able to focus on war against other empires, not on evading/countering/hiring pirates. Pirates are only one of game aspects. Not only game aspect. Not even one of the most important aspect... Agree, Entranchement pirates were joke. Buth they should never reach to Diplomacy level...

Maybe a Buy Out Pirates option where you buy the pirate system and they now work for you as a permanent ally?

And yeah, nerf them to hell as well.

I like the new Badass Pirates.

 

I do think they are bugged on the upper end of scale.  Their strength should scale with the bounty or the level of researched fleet capacity... something like that.  They should not be tied to time.

 

The pirates should be able to take on a medium fleet, or an unguarded starbase... but not a full fleet or starbase with a defending fleet.

 

Bounty FTW!

 

This is kinda small for a supporting fleet to ten capital ships.  You've got 500 fleetpoints in high survivability, but low dps capital ships.  You'd be very well served with another 50 skirmishers for the anti-heavy damage and some serious carrier support loaded up with bombers.  Taking down all those turrets is best done with them if you're not going to bring in anti-structure cruisers.

 

Vasari is also the worst side for sitting in on a slug fest.  They're much better on the run than the other two sides, and they excel at dropping single targets with massive restoration capabilities.  They do not win the survivability war though.  Advent can handle far more damage with minimal losses against the pirates through use of Progenitors and Guardians, and TEC capital ships are flat hard to kill if you have multiple level 3 shield restore capable Dunovs.

 

The pirate base is truly horrific, but build more of a fleet to send along with your capital ships and it wont be that messy.  Vasari just can't do the insane dps sink hole thing with them like the other two can.

3-4k health seems appropriate.  Pirates don't get shield mitigation, so this is more like 1600 health on player-controlled unit.  Shield mitigation more than halves the damage you take, so having no shields is a big deal.

The issue I see is if they're stacking massive armor values with massive health.  That could give you significant issues in the long-term.  However, in and of itself 4000 hull on a pirate unit is entirely reasonable.

I find it funny that all I've heard for the past 2 years is how weak and pathetic pirates are.  Now that they are apparently buffed, people are screaming about that.

Me?  I didn't buy the game to fight pirates.  When I play an MP game and someone has them turned on, I just leave.  Also, when people turn them off (which is what I want), they give stupid justifications for turning them off, such as "well they are just weak and pointless."  What?  My justification for turning them off is that I don't want to play against a damn AI in multiplayer.  I want to pit my wits against a human.  Adding an AI into the equation just throws a random wrench into the works.  At the end of the game I want to be able to say I beat the guy or lost to the guy.  I don't want any question marks.

I guess I just don't get the reason for all the love of pirates the past few years.  Must be an SP thing.

Pirates =/= AI

 

Darvin, a single pirate ship with 4000 hull IS NOT REASONNABLE! But if the pirates where to send 5 Corsairs with 800 hull each, then yes that is reasonnable. Pirates should only grow in NUMBERS, never in strength. There is a huge difference between fighting 5 ships with 800 hull and 26 dps and fighting a single ship with 4000 hull and 128 dps. By taking a few ship out, you also reduced the pirates DPS. Even if you damage the 4000 hull super pirate ship, you never take away its combat effectiveness, thats the primary reason why the should only grow in numbers. The secondary reason is: where did they find this uber tech?, because if my ships are limited to a +30% hull boost using my research, how come PIRATES can get so powerful. It makes no sense at all!

Uh, did you play the game before Diplomacy?  800 HP pirates is why they sucked.  A starbase with maxed weapons can do ~450 DPS to, what 6-7 ships at once?  Hell, you could hold off late game raids with 3 turrets and a repair bay, no tac upgrade required.  That's why people turned them off, they were a joke.  4000 HP in the endgame is fine.  The problem is armour and weapons on them need to stop at a sane level, or be tied to something besides game time.  You shouldn't need to outnumber them 3 to 1 with a starbase and repair bays to stop a raid unless people have been giving them tens of thousands of credits in bounty and missions.

I turn them off because it's stupid to play with an AI in an MP game.  I could give a crap how easy or tough they are.

Interesting news.

I do not have Diplomacy, but I have Entrenchment and I ended up turning Pirates to OFF because of having to spend too much time in a bidding war to keep the pirates off of me.

Has this changed in Diplomacy?  Does one still have to "babysit" the pirate bidding to ensure one is safe?  Or did Ironclad change the bidding process for the better.

Pirates have to tank through starbases and minefields, all without shield mitigation.  As I already mentioned, 4k hull is not nearly as much as it sounds due to the effects (or rather, the pirate's lack thereof) of shield mitigation.  So yeah, I think 4000 hit points is fine, maybe even a little low depending on their armor values.

Pirates have no shields, no support cruisers, no carriers, and no long-range cruisers.  There are SO MANY ways to blast them before they get a shot off that it just isn't funny.  I do not want pirates to go back being silly little lumps of free experience.



That is NOT reasonable.  Not at all.  That's so weak that they'll die in seconds to any reasonable defense.  Do you even realize that those corsairs are about as tough as scouts!?  Seriously, shield mitigation is a 60% damage reduction most of the time, without it 800 hull is more like 320 hull.  You kidding me?  If you don't have some crazy high armor value then these Corairs will just get waxed the moment they enter your gravity well.

This is why pirates got so massively buffed, because they were no threats at all.  Combined with simplistic and predictable behavior, a very limited unit lineup, and a lack of shield mitigation they just didn't stand a chance against player forces.  They needed these excessive stats. 

Now, I do agree that they should stop scaling at a certain point (since the player stops scaling), but they should remain powerful and threatening.  Increasing their numbers isn't the answer, because this just keeps them equally vulnerable to area of effect abilities.  Marza with missile barrage, Transcencia with meteor control, or just a simple minefield, if pirates don't have the health to tank it, they're just rendered moot as soon as you have the appropriate counter.



Why are you bothering?  Just put up a few repair bays and turrets.  Pirate problem solved.  They're so weak they're not even worth your time bidding.

Heck, if you can afford to do it, send a capital ship to defend against the pirate raid.  Not because you need it to defend, but because it's great experience that will help level it up.

That said, I've never liked the EBay bidding system.  Far as I'm concerned, if two people bid super high, pirates should attack both targets, whether or not one of them bidded a little extra pocket change at the last second.

>That said, I've never liked the EBay bidding system.  Far as I'm concerned, if two people bid super high, pirates should attack both targets, whether or not one of them bidded a little extra pocket change at the last second.

 

No kidding.  IMO, it would have worked better it the bounty remained hidden until they launched.  You have no idea if your opponents are bidding or not.  You could drop 2000 in bounty only to find your opponents spent nothing.  I understand the bounty system was meant for FFA players in general, not just the pirates; but it's rather annoying that the system encourages you to drop everything and watch the bidding for a good 30 seconds or so.

If you don't want to get your fleet trashed by the pirates be somewhere else

I think there should be an auto-bid option with a maximum bid limit you can set, and it automatically tops your opponents and keeps doing it until it reaches a certain minimum money limit that you can also set. It should probably have 5 second breaks between bids so there wont be an ultra-fast bidding war between AIs that escalates to 1 million in a few seconds.

Not sure if you have played a long diplomacy game yet or not, but from what I witnessed the Pirate Pillager becomes a long range structure buster after it finishes with the planet. The normal defense measures of turrent, starbase and strikecraft are useless as the pillager out ranges the starbase and turrents and fighters/bombers go poof to the pirate flak (100+ dps).

The only thing I found that worked against strong pirate fleets without my own fleet nearby was to have a starbase with enforced loyalty, etc to keep the pillagers from attacking any structures. The other pirates even with the increased hull, armor and weapons could be handled with normal defense structures and starbase with maybe some lost turrents or repair bays... Then strike craft can be used to destroy the pillagers after the flak are destroyed.

Personally, I don't mind the current mechanic the more I play assuming they CAP out at some point (There is another thread that says they will cap out). It just seems really odd to go up against a Pirate frigate with 20 armor while my Kortul maxes around 13. 

So currently... If you get to mid-late game and you don't have a starbase with enforced loyalty, etc and a significant fleet nearby, you will probably lose the planet and all the structures in it. However, this also works to your advantage in FFA games online or against the AI with pirate bidding or the new pirate missions. I just wish I could watch the pirate raid if I outbid or purchased a mission!!! Before this change I never even bothered bidding on Pirate raids in FFA games.

Please don't remove the Super Strong Pirates! If you make any change make if like the fleet size toggle.

Pirates Off, Pirates Normal, Pirates Hard, Pirates Cruel, Pirates Vicious...

What concerns me about the expansion is that it may not mesh well with the existing game.  Having pirates that pose a real threat to the player is fine, but if the pirates overwhelm the AI might that not destroy the point of the expansion? 

The pirate ships start without shield mitigation, so vastly increasing their health because they don't have mitigation will mean that they become more powerful in relation to the AI than they were at the beginning.  I would limit them to the increases the AI can have, that is max at something like +6 armour, +30% health.  The current weapon damage increase is crazy... +20% per upgrade with 20 upgrades, what possible logic could justify that?????  +5% with 10 upgrades is rather more than most AIs get.  20 levels of range upgrade and weapons cooldown is just silly????

Sensible change is always best.  The TEC envoy cruiser had a charity power of 10 credits a second until it was pointed out that this was as bad as this version of the pirates.  Envoys have become 2 credits a second, this is still more than a trade port, so it is still wrong, it just means that TEC can win any small map where they have an ally.  The changes have to relate to what already exists.  

It is a shame that the pirate steal ships ability didn't make it, but it may have been difficult to implement.  However the pirates could be improved without having to boost their ships and turrets directly.  Slow trade ships down to 1/3 speed so trade isn't a defence against them.  Add inherent defensive powers to their roid- if novaliths can't take out starbases, why should they destroy the armoured pirate roid?  Why not add the powers of a starbase to the roid in terms of phase transit damage, as well as an inbuilt phase inhibitor?  Have the gravwell as a plasma storm or magnetic cloud, or a combination of both?  If the well was a plasma storm it would look good and protect the turrets.  These solutions seem to me to be more satisfying than starbase-turrets..?

As there is an option to pay directly for attacks on planets, it might be an improvement to reserve direct attacks on planets to that option.  Then the regular pirate attacks could be a different type of attack aimed at soft targets like trade, refinery or envoy ships and not be restricted to a single grav well, they would just continue to the next attack.  The dynamic would change to protecting trade from pirates, rather than having trade ports on a 'front line' for extra defence.  With the regular attacks, anyone with a handy dead asteroid just had to recolonise it occasionally to suffer no other effect at all from pirates- and I was never sure what the effect of relating the bounty to pirate damage done was meant to be?  All this would take would be slower trade ships, plus an AI instruction to move to the next gravwell if there were no targets... this wouldn't be difficult?     

We should expect teething troubles with the expansion, though it is somewhat of a concern that the pirates and envoys have started so far out of line.   I hope the new victory conditions aren't as problematic?

Pirates should get their own light carrer (and maybe support cruiers too) IMO. Nerf them first OFC

Im a new player and i barely know the game. A friend said it was awesome and what not so i thought, might as well give it a try. After only about 2 hours of playing, i havent even got close to the enemy npc, which is not the problem. Ive only got like 4-5 planets spread out, yeah its lovely being new. Anyway ive bid against pirates for a while but stopped doing it so see what happened. I got this little fleet and defense around my planet. All of the sudden this HUGE pirate army appears. They lose a couple of ships to some mines, but its like firing a water gun at a swarm of mosquitos. They tear my defense down in a matter of minutes and my army is destroyed like it was nothing.

I look at the pirate stats and they are far better than my ships and far more. Yeah, im a complete noob and ive only played for like 5-6 hours in total. Ive always lost my encounters against the pirates so far. At first i do fine but after a few hours have passed they just rip me apart and i dont stand a chance against them.

Ive looked for some help how to play the game cause ive been thinking im doing something seriously wrong. The tutorials are lacking because they dont explain too well how stuff acutally works. I had to visit sites and write down what exactly the ships do, what their weakness is and so on. Then i just read that the ai is suppose to be "smart" so i dont have to target ships manually.

It just feels kinda old having to write stuff up on a paper because the game doesnt show it in the interface. Like for example that the pirate cutthroat is a offensive cruiser and rogue is a light frigate. But then again thats not suppose to matter right, since your ships on auto should "think" by themselves? It really dont do much difference, looking at the ships it just looks chatotic when they appear to be firing at whatever is the closest target...

Dont get me wrong here the game is pretty cool and all that, its just that i get owned and that is kinda frustrating. Not by the enemy npc but some damn pirates. Ive yet to actually made contact with the npc! Well, i guess the more you play the better you understand the game. Anyway i just think the pirates seem very powerful. I have no idea how they were in earlier versions of this game.

@huldu- the main recommendation I can give you for now is to turn the pirates off. They are OP even for us veterans so yeah, a noob would get owned quick

so just go into game options when you first set up a game and set pirates to off

I'm completely new to Sins (just bought Trinity) and am using the Distant Stars mod.  After two games, I turned the pirates off.  They ended up being my most dangerous opponent, which is not what pirates are supposed to be.  It sounds like they just need to have their upgrades stop, preferrably just below the three factions max upgrades, instead of infinitely increasing.

"Please don't remove the Super Strong Pirates! If you make any change make if like the fleet size toggle. Pirates Off, Pirates Normal, Pirates Hard, Pirates Cruel, Pirates Vicious..."

I agree with this.  I personally like the super pirates as it were.  Or to clarify I don't mind defending against them when I lose the bidding war.  

(I usually play as Vasari and always research Raider Xenophobia.  Pirate raiders become much more manageable after that)

I do wish that it was still actually possible to destroy a pirate base.  I can bring in my entire fleet with a constructor for a starbase and still get completely wiped out.  This same fleet can easily mow down any of the other AI factions, starbase or no.

I have been playing the DS mod with Entrenchment, and thought the pirates were pretty powerful.  However after a few games I was able to change my tactics and have been able to handle them with little effort.

 

With the straight Diplomacy the pirates are much harder than in Distant Stars.  Time will tell if I can adapt again to where the pirates are controllable, or not.

Ech, some say super pirates are cool some say they arent. Ima go with they arent. They need a cap to their strength. 4khp pirate ships with 40+ armor and 100+ damage is just ludicrous. 5 ships like this is equal to 1 FULLY UPGRADED Starbase with an additional 20+ armor - shield mitigation (thank god). How many of these kinds of ships come in those late game raids? 20? 30? More? So to give you an idea of what thats like: the equivalent of 5-6 fully upgraded Orkuli just suddenly appearing at one of your planets. And somehow you're supposed to be able to defend against that? Sure pirate raids should hurt, but they shouldnt be able to annihilate your entire fleet no matter what you do. I mean 40+ armor COME ON! That means each of those ships are taking less than 33% (some are taking closer to 25%) of the damage you're dishing out, and thats not including armor type modifiers. (Anti-v. heavy, composite and capital ship weapons are the only thing actually hitting those pirate HCs with close to or slightly more than a third of their firepower).

SUre there are ways to kill the pirate base super late game, but shouldnt you have options? Having these undefeatable forces there cuts down on possibilities, removing options is bad for gameplay. Im all for the upgrades to scale with the game, but they have to stop somewhere on par with what can be achieved by factions. And if they're too weak then, just add more ships, not more upgrades (makes more sense that way anyway).

Again, I think this is a bug. How could they mean to make pirate ships the strongest in the game by those kind of margins?

Because, of course, there are no obvious alternatives such as making the pirates have 'stealth' properties to reflect a strategy of blending in with innocent civvie ship traffic, a preference for kidnapping future slaves off planets and boarding cargo freighters instead of attacking major military installations head-on, and additional speed to reflect a tolerance for wildly unsafe levels of engine radiation if that means outrunning the local authorities. 

The only possible approach is making them unusually tough forces with a direct-assault mentality and a completely magical economy that if actually wielded intelligently would let them dominate a quadrant, so instead they have to be controlled by idiots.  Right?